Poverty in the Developing World

Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe Excerpts

Thursday 28th April 2011 Lords Chamber

[Baroness Warwick of Undercliffe]

My Lords, I congratulate the noble Lord, Lord McConnell, on enabling us to focus on this vital issue. We have heard the statistics before but they should not lose their power to shock. In 2010 there were 925 million hungry people in the world—some 13 per cent of the estimated world population. That is nearly one in seven, and nearly all of them are in developing countries. In sub-Saharan Africa alone, over half the population lives on less than £1 a day. Every 3.6 seconds one person dies of starvation, and usually it is a child under five.

As UNICEF reminds us, reducing poverty starts with children. That is why I want to focus my remarks on young people and on the importance of education as a proven route out of extreme poverty. I make no apology for returning to this theme, which I raised in our debate earlier this month. It seems vital to emphasise to the UK’s Department for International Development the value for money and effectiveness of focusing its resources on basic education.

I am proud of the previous Government’s commitment and achievement in these areas, and it is a source of great pleasure to see that the coalition Government appear to have the same commitment, leading the way in focusing on women and children’s health. We know that the best start in life is critical in a child’s first few years, not only to her survival but to her physical, intellectual and emotional development. Deprivations such as lack of immunisation, malnutrition, and lack of access to household water greatly hamper children’s ability to achieve their potential, contributing to an intergenerational cycle of poverty and hunger. Providing children with basic education, healthcare and nutrition breaks that cycle.

All the evidence shows that basic education is one of the most cost-effective development interventions, and not just for the child. It aids economic growth, helps prevent HIV, improves health and prevents conflict. So I welcome DfID’s recent review of UK aid and its publication earlier this month of Changing Lives, Delivering Results, which sets out where and how the coalition Government plan to focus their aid spending over the next four years. I agree with its declaration that education is the best investment we can make,

“for global prosperity and the future of our world”.

It states that an extra year of quality schooling lifts a country’s annual economic growth by 1 per cent, yet each morning 69 million children do not have the chance to go to school. Many more fail to complete even a level of schooling to get basic skills or progress to secondary school and thus move into good jobs.

UNICEF figures show that some 13 per cent of children aged seven to 18 in developing countries have never attended school. In sub-Saharan Africa, this rate is 32 per cent among girls and 27 per cent among boys. The figure for rural children in the Middle East and north Africa is 33 per cent. However, as UNICEF says, an education is perhaps a child’s strongest barrier against poverty, especially for girls. Clearly, getting girls into school begins what DfID calls,

“a chain reaction of further benefits”.

Educated women are more likely to send their own children to school, creating a virtuous circle of opportunity and prosperity. Therefore, I welcome the promise that UK aid will take simple, practical forms, which directly encourage girls to stay on at school, such as the appointment of more female teachers and schools-based counsellors, and the funding for separate latrines. I also welcome DfID’s commitment in Nigeria, for example, to get 500,000 more girls into school by 2015 to receive an improved education. By giving 60,000 families the money that girls would earn if they were at work, along with 5,000 scholarships to encourage more women to go into teaching, we are going to the heart of many barriers that exist to educating women in Nigeria—a country with the largest number of out-of-school children in the world.

It is not just a question of pumping in aid money. We know that for the handouts to become a hands-up to national and individual prosperity and health, government aid programmes must also tackle inequality, corruption and weak institutions. As long as the poor are denied a political voice, vulnerabilities will remain. We have heard many examples today from other noble Lords that have reinforced this point. We need to be reassured that developing countries are working to ensure an equitable distribution of the rewards of economic growth. Greater powers to control their own affairs are important to local communities and individual households. OneWorld’s global poverty update in January notes that direct cash transfers, often conditional on children’s attendance at school and for immunisation, are proving effective. OneWorld also reminds us that,

“accountability through democracy and individual rights creates the environment in which governments come under pressure to end wasteful practices and corruption”.

I end my remarks with a question for the coalition Government and for DfID. How much are they willing to pressure aid-receiving countries to pursue democratic equality and diversity values as part of their aid-giving education policies? Could the Minister, in replying to that question, tell the House how pursuit of these values in recipient countries is monitored and evaluated? In the six minutes for which I have spoken, shockingly, 100 under-fives have died of starvation. UNICEF’s latest report says that,

“we have a chance to nurture a generation”—

who will be able—

“to realize their rights, laying the foundation for a more peaceful … world, in which each successive generation of children can thrive”.

That is a goal worth striving for.